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Caltrain officials have convinced federal safety authorities to allow quick European-style electric trains to zip from San Francisco to San Jose, a national first that paves the way for fast electric commuter and high-speed trains in the Bay Area and around the country.

Although common in Europe, the smaller electric trains are illegal in the United States because federal officials have long considered them too small, poorly designed and unsafe. But after three years of tests and research, Caltrain will become the first railroad in the nation to use the technology after being granted a waiver, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Area News Group, on Thursday.

Caltrain will essentially be a pilot operation for the trains, called electric multiple units. If successful, commuter railroads and planned high-speed rail networks throughout the nation would have access to cheaper, greener and faster trains.

“People thought they could only get this level of service by having BART. This out-BART’s BART.” said Bob Doty, head of the joint Caltrain-high-speed rail program. “This tiny little streak of rust out here will be the first in the United States to allow mixed operations of service.”

The waiver allows all passenger trains, whether diesel or electric, to run on the same tracks. Freight locomotives can continue to operate in the wee hours while passenger trains are parked.

Without the waiver, Caltrain would be unable to complete its $1.5 billion project to electrify, which is being teamed with the state’s $43 billion high-speed railroad.

Officials called the waiver “a major boost of adrenaline” for an agency that has been on life support lately. Faced with losing huge chunks of funding over the next two years, Caltrain says electric trains are the only way it can survive without being gutted by half, or possibly shut down.

The sleek trains can start and stop more quickly, allowing for service to more stations and thus more revenue, and they are also cheaper to operate.

The waiver is equally big for the polarizing California high-speed rail project.

Although the state will need to apply for its own waiver, the bullet train rail car technology is nearly the same as Caltrain’s, so the high-speed rail planners’ effort should prove simple now that the groundwork for obtaining clearance has been laid, Doty said.

The Federal Railroad Administration said it would pull the waiver if the agency did not meet nine promises laid out in the application. For instance, Caltrain must conduct crash tests after the cars are built, construct rail bridges at several intersections and install a safety program that uses global positioning system technology to prevent trains from colliding.

Doty said the electric cars passed each safety test laid out by the FRA, which had never tested its assumption that the European cars were less safe.

“In every case, the equipment we wanted to bring in was equal to or better than what’s running in the United States today,” he said.

It is the first of two major hurdles that must be cleared before Caltrain and the state can build the electric railroad.

Money remains a major obstacle, with Caltrain still lacking 40 percent of its funding and high-speed rail lacking three-fourths. If the agencies can get the funding, the projects are expected to start in fall 2012 and finish later this decade.

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